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Friday, June 27, 2014

But, our feet are extra high today because we found out we are ready for our Birth Parent Letter to go to design! Can I get a Woot, Woot!

While working on our letter has been exciting and right up my alley since I love to write...it was challenging. It wasn't the writing that was hard, but saying all that we wanted to say in 950 words was tough. In the end, we are very happy with what we said in those 950 words and can't wait to see it in print.

As I mentioned before, we chose Our Chosen Child to design our letter. Joanna was referred to us by your agency, IAC, along with several other designers. After reviewing Joanna's portfolio, it was no contest, as her designs are creative, personal, and visually captivating.

An example of Joanna's design.

We've been in contact with her during our entire letter process and we are scheduled to meet with her Monday (via phone) to finalize our design, layout, and overall look. Since Jonathan is fluent in Spanish, we are also having our letter printed in Spanish.

Needless to say, this is a huge milestone in our adoption process. We can't wait to see the final product! This Birth Parent Letter will be our face in the adoption world so its visual and emotional impact are so important.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Welcome to our blog!
We're so excited to share our journey with open adoption with you.

We are Shan (that's me!) and J and we live in Folsom, CA. It's a fabulous, suburban city about 30 miles east of Sacramento. Folsom is rich in its history, starting from the Gold Rush era. Little known cool fact - Folsom was the site of the West's first railroad! The water you see in the photo below is Folsom Lake (in the back of the photo) and this feeds into the beautiful American River. We live less than five minutes to one of the American River's most beautiful beaches and its a great place to kayak, swim, hike, and bike.

An aerial view of Folsom...isn't it pretty?

For the most part, our decision to adopt is pretty normal. We have ALWAYS wanted children. We've been married 10 years and together over 15 years, and we knew early on in our relationship that we wanted a family. Unfortunately, we struggled with infertility. We tried several fertility drugs and had three failed IUI cycles. It was hard going through infertility, as most who've struggled with it will attest. Although infertility was difficult, J and I have always been so open to adoption. We know without a shadow of a doubt, that adoption is the path we're supposed to be on.

For many people, deciding on an adoption agency is the hard part. Not for us! We fell in love with Independent Adoption Center (IAC) at our first orientation meeting. When making a big decision like this, it seemed only fair to check out other agencies, but none compared to the great resources, outreach, and support we felt with IAC.

We've been hard at work on our paperwork (yes, there are mounds of it, but it's exciting!) and we finished our home study. The biggest thing we are working on now is our Dear Birth Parent Letter. We have our text finished and most of our photos...we hope to send the letter to our designer, Joanna at Our Chosen Child very shortly. We are excited to share it with you upon completion.